


In the Devil's Eye

by Nokomis



Category: Hemlock Grove
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:43:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2806415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Destiny sees the writing on the wall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Devil's Eye

**Author's Note:**

  * For [havocthecat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/havocthecat/gifts).



Knowing when to cut and run is the most important thing her family ever taught her, and Destiny sees the writing on the wall. 

Hemlock Grove has never been a peaceful place -- that would be terrible for business, so Destiny's never wanted that, has always used the dark underbelly of the town to her own advantage, selling powders and liquids she claimed were spells and potions to the the hollow-eyed customers -- but things have changed, now. Sometimes her hands still seem to stink of bleach and blood, and when she turns off her lights, she can always hear the beating of terrible wings.

She doesn't tell Peter that she plans to leave. Peter is family, and Destiny would crawl to hell and back for him, but he's losing himself. She doesn't know if the Vargulf or the Godfreys are going to win Peter over, but either way it's beyond her abilities to stop. 

Destiny hasn't looked at Peter's palm since he emerged from the Vargulf's skin. She doesn't need to; doom radiates off him like pheromones, clinging to everything close enough.

Destiny might already be lost, herself.

Andreas has a gig in South Carolina, something he doesn't share the details about. Destiny doesn't need to ask. She knows the signs of a grift when she sees one, and once you've seen one, the details are unimportant. He will call when he discovers her gone, and she will tell him where to find her. 

She spends four days preparing to leave. She books as many clients as she can, spinning fake futures and slipping powders into teas and letting her shirt slide off her shoulder until she has enough cash to get far, far away.

She leaves a line of amulets on her counter. Five in all, tagged with descriptions that tell nothing and everything all at once. Put in the hollow of a tree. Whisper under the moonlight. To battle your demons.

She leaves behind a drop of blood or a strand of hair carefully wound around the opening on each, and hopes for the best. She loves Peter, but she won't follow him down this path. She can't.

She thinks, briefly, of climbing on a plane and finding Lynda, but the twist in her gut at the thought leads her to her car and the open road instead.

*

Money is always an issue.

Her radiator springs a leak twenty fucking miles outside Hemlock Grove. She pulls over and pops the hood; leans over the front of the car in her short dress, and within five minutes she’s got someone else bent over the motor, poking at the radiator cap and cussing up a blue streak at burnt fingers.

They offer her a card for a towing service; she recognizes the name from Peter’s jacket, and she shakes her head, making up a story about a boyfriend with a car hauler on the way.

The third man to stop has a bottle of stop-leak in his truck, and Destiny’s back on the road.

Twenty more miles down the road a tire blows, and two hundred dollars after that, the motor throws a rod and refuses to budge another inch.

She gets a motel room near the garage that her car is parked behind, and takes slow, deep breaths as she looks in the mirror. 

It’s impossible that she’s cursed -- she would know, her grandfather taught her better than this -- but evidence points in another direction.

Destiny knows what an impasse feels like.

Something wants her to return to Hemlock Grove. Something has its claws dug deep into her.

Destiny’s not a coward, but she wants to play this smart, and smart isn’t going back to that town and letting it take her alive.

It isn’t.

*

It’s when she crosses back over the town line that she feels the curse lift.

“Drop me off here,” she tells the middle-aged insurance adjuster who gave her a lift. “That’s a doll.”

He smiles sheepishly at her, shy and pleased, as she pecks him on the cheek and hops out on the side of the highway, swinging her duffel over her shoulder. She’s ten steps down the road before the car drives past her slowly, as if giving her another chance to get in, but she never looks up.

She’s too busy staring at the lines of dark, sinuous wisps of energy that keep twining around her ankles, shackling her to the town.

Someone’s doing magic. She takes in a deep breath, and nearly chokes as the wisps slide past her lips.

Someone’s doing magic, and at least some of it’s geared towards hers.

*

She calls Lynda when she gets within sight of the town center, settling herself on a bench under a tall, swaying poplar. “Is there anyone else who practices in Hemlock Grove?”

Destiny’s been here a while, but there’s something nebulous and strange about the town, and new places and people seem to appear on the wind, and other places seem to fade like old memories. Just because she never noticed another magic-user in town doesn’t mean there isn’t one.

“No,” Lynda says after a faltering hesitation, like she’s reaching for memories that no longer exist.

That’s all Destiny needs to know, really.

*

She doesn’t go back to her apartment. Destiny’s learned to trust her instincts, any everything within her is telling her that she’s been marked, somehow, and that she needs to go underground.

She strolls into the bathroom of a fast food restaurant and transforms herself. Wig, makeup and a dowdy sweater turn her into someone unrecognizable, and she walks slower and more purposefully as she exits. 

It’s probably overkill, but Destiny hasn’t lived this long by half-assing her way through things. Magic won’t be fooled by her disguise, but she hasn’t seen or felt any of the wisps since she crossed the town line, and she’s hoping that it’s a geographically-specific spell. 

She doesn’t know much about those -- most of what she’s learned is a more intuitive, dangerous form of magic than the ritualistic, formulaic spells that she knows also exist -- but she does know that it takes true talent to accomplish. Not just anyone who stumbled across a spellbook in a yard sale could pull it off. It takes training and a certain spark, and Destiny has to figure out who has that.

*

Being back in town so soon after deciding to abandon it allows Destiny to see Hemlock Grove with entirely fresh eyes.

She never bothered to say goodbye -- she’s never been the nostalgic type -- but it feels like she did, somehow, when she drove over the county line, and now she sees how the Godfrey tower looms over the town like a massive, overbearing gargoyle.

She ends up in the grocery store -- a fitting location given her soccer-mom disguise -- and is frankly amazed when she realizes that the man staring intently at the selection in the spice aisle is picking out the exact correct items to reinforce the border-spell. It's too easy.

Destiny has her mark.

*

She follows the man.

The disguise works wonders; she isn't given a second glance, and he never once realizes that he's been made. Destiny doesn't put much stock in auras, but she trusts her gut, and every instinct she has is telling her that this man is going to cause her and hers harm.

There's too much harm already being flung around. Destiny isn't going to allow this to touch her. She's going to cut this threat out before it ever solidifies into something real.

A few dollars here, a few smiles there and Destiny knows where he's staying. What he claims to do. 

Knows where he'll be.

*

She doesn't call Andreas, but he shows up anyway. He mumbles some story about getting a bad feeling and cutting and running on his grift, and Destiny laughs and throws her arms around him.

She doesn't believe in coincidences. She knows what the bad feeling was centered on, and it delights her that he came to her. She doesn't need a protector, but that doesn't mean she can't appreciate having one.

He acts gruff when she tells him about the magic user, about her plan. She's staying on the downlow. and she's almost ready to make her move.

"A girl's gotta work," Destiny tells him airily, rearranging the spice rack and plucking out a few, dumping some of the spices into a satchet. She takes a tentative sniff, and decides it smells too much like the mall during December, and adds a healthy dash of smoked paprika to offset the scent. "Does this smell mysteriously magical enough?"

Andreas refuses to take it from her. "This is bad news, Destiny."

"So's life, but neither one of us are giving that up, sweetheart." She threw in a few twigs and tied up the satchet. She wasn't going to risk any real magics on this-- the risks were too great. She can't let this man learn anything from her. She has to be a fraud in his eyes.

She’s borrowing Norman’s house; it’s not like anyone lives there anymore, and she doesn’t want to give away the element of surprise by returning to her apartment.

*

The satchet is a success. 

Destiny ditches her disguise and slides in across from the man -- Isaiah, his name is --at the coffeehouse. She sees a look of true fear on his face before he schools it into submission. She knows that he’s a practitioner, that he’s trying to…

Destiny has no fucking clue what he’s trying to do. 

She decides to ask.

*

Isaiah is strong-willed; Destiny will grant him that. It takes her an hour before she can convince him that she’s serious, that she’s cursed him, that he’s doomed unless he talks. She lead him back to Norman's after coffee, and she's starting to consider doing just the teensy bit of real magic, some illusion, just to loosen his tongue. And then... it works. Doubts come to light and Isaiah breaks.

And when he does…

Destiny has never bought much stock into the idea that some places are better conduits of magic than others. That idea lends itself better to families that set down roots; hers never has. Has never felt the need to built concrete pillars into the sky to claim ownership on something as universal as land.

But she knows hallowed ground can be important, and she knows there are some places that she could never get her potions and spells to work right at. 

Hemlock Grove, it turns out, is the opposite. Pulsating with magic, and this worm of a magician wants her to teach him the dark arts, as if she knows any. Wants to advertise, wants to bring other black-magic users into town. He talks about a coven, and Destiny knows she can't let this happen. 

Magic itself is neither good nor evil; it just requires payment. Everything depends on what you’re willing to pay.

He’s about to find out what Destiny is willing to chance.


End file.
